After many months of meetings too many to contemplate, the Bainbridge Island City Council is continuing its paragraph-by-paragraph review of the city’s new comprehensive plan, the expansive policy document that will guide growth and development on Bainbridge Island for the next two decades.

And frankly, we’re a bit blown away by where the discussion may go next.

As talk continues in the coming weeks, the council is expected to turn its attention to leaf blowers.

Yes, leaf blowers, those gas-powered prophets of autumn’s arrival.

Some on the council are hoping that the comprehensive plan will include a policy that would call for the regulation (and perhaps ban) of leaf blowers and other gasoline-powered lawn maintenance equipment.

The call for a ban comes from an email complaint from one Bainbridge resident to council members: “What used to be merely a nuisance has become a major source of stress and irritation for my family,” wrote the islander, a 22-year resident. “…Beyond the noise, I’m certain that gas-powered leaf blowers are significant contributors of air pollution and greenhouse gases.”

Tis true, that leaf blowers are noisy and are always unnecessary when the yard to be cleared is not your own.

Still, the notion that the council would blemish the comprehensive plan — a document that can not only inspire but bind our community together with a shared vision of what Bainbridge can be — with a call for regulating leaf blowers is a notion that leaves us as red-faced as a crimson leaf on a Japanese maple.

How would such regulations be enforced? Would the police department establish an elite “yard squad” to chase after and collar lawbreaking landscapers or harried husbands hoping to knock another item off their honey-do lists?

And yet, why focus on the tools of the trade of just one set of sometimes too loud workers? How about restrictions on other tools just as noisy and disturbing to the soul, such as dentist drills?

And how about a few regulations to combat the chirping, dinging, ringing, singing of cell phones, or the people who answer them?

Seriously, council, please leaf us (pun intended) alone with our garden tools, tractors and lawnmowers. We live in a noisy world sometimes, and that’s OK.

Focus, instead, this updated comprehensive plan on policies for safer streets, adequate public facilities, thoughtful and compatible development. We will thank you forever from our tidy lawns and clean driveways.